March 20, 1976
Caleb practically vibrated with excitement as he clung to his dad's hand while they made their way across the parking lot and into Olympia Stadium. He didn't know it was called that, though; Caleb thought of the place the same way he'd heard his dad talk about it, as 'the old red barn'.
Under his winter coat and an oversized child's copy of a Red Wings jersey, Caleb had a plastic garbage bag tied around his waist. Inside the bag was the absolutely coolest thing he had ever touched in his entire life – an octopus. An octopus with tentacles and suckers and it had been slimy and alive when Dad had brought it home, though it was smaller than the one Dad had in a similar makeshift plastic belt under his own coat and jersey. But that was okay by Caleb. He was a lot smaller than his dad, so it only made sense that his own octopus was smaller, too. They'd boiled the octopuses to kill them and get rid of the slime. Caleb hadn't wanted to kill them, but when his dad explained that if they didn't, the animals would die anyway, either from being out of the water too long or from landing on the ice during the game, the five year-old had agreed it was probably kinder to make sure they didn't suffer too long (though he did wonder if the octopuses could feel the hot water and if it hurt).
It didn't take long to cross the parking lot, but the wait to get through security and to their seats took almost an hour. By the end of that hour, Caleb's dad was about ready to try a leash the next time he had the bright idea to bring his son to a game. Once they found their seats, only a couple of rows back from the glass – when Bryant splurged on something, he did it right, damn it – they had to wait some more before the actual game began. It wasn't as irritating as waiting in line had been, but the million-and-one questions Caleb came up with during the remaining half-hour had Bryant strenuously reminding himself just why they didn't do this sort of thing all that often.
When the National Anthem finished, the group surrounding the Forresters (indeed, several clusters and knots of people all around the stadium) remained standing as octopi rained down on the ice. Caleb's dad threw his, like he had told his son earlier, to show how it was done. Caleb would get the chance to throw his later (he hoped), after the Red Wings made their first goal.
With the swiftness that comes with long practice, the ice was soon clear of eight-legged sea creatures, and the game began.
During lulls in the action, Bryant quickly gathered support from his fellow fans to help distract security from identifying Caleb when the kid threw his first octopus. For all that the majority of the folks sitting around them tended to be older, grizzled, and none-too-friendly looking individuals, Bryant was heartened that they cheerfully complied with his request. It made him lose just a touch of the unease he had always felt around Olympia Stadium since the riots in '67.
The plan went off without a hitch. Immediately on the heels of the Red Wings' first goal, Caleb (who had removed his now-rubbery tentacled beast from its plastic wrapper and had been hiding it in the pocket of his coat), seated on his dad's shoulders, threw the eight-inch octopus over the high glass surrounding the ice where it landed in an unoccupied portion of the arena, amid the confusion of standing, stamping, hollering fans.
Later, after the game came to its logical conclusion, Caleb and his dad walked back out to the parking lot amid the crowds of dejected and elated fans. The Forresters were definitely among the 'elated' portion – the Red Wings had managed to beat the Flyers, 4-2. Caleb kept up a steady stream of chatter on the way to the car. Bryant made sure to make appropriate noises as he searched for their parking place. He wasn't all too sure what-all his son was saying, only that there were numerous repetitions of we did it and the octopuses really do work for luck and when can we do this again and can I be a hockey player when I grow up and so on and so on. Bryant had long learned that the easiest way to deal with a hyperactive, babbling kid was merely to let the words flow around and over him. Oddly, it had not been Mrs. Montgomery who had made the suggestion, but one of the guys Bryant worked with at the steel mill.
After another lengthy wait to exit the arena's parking lot – during which Caleb kept on chattering, leading Bryant to the conclusion that, special occasion or not, no way was he ever again going to let Caleb drink four Cokes in a single day – Bryant began navigating his way back to the worn apartment building he'd moved them to when Caleb was six months old.
Halfway to their destination, Bryant mouthed the last Kool from the pack in his pocket and lit it while waiting for a red light. Not wanting to have to make another stop, Bryant asked his son if it would be okay if they got their ice cream at the corner store a few blocks from their apartment. Caleb didn't care; he'd not only gotten to see his very first real life hockey game, but his and Dad's favorite team won all because of the octopus he'd thrown and mere ice cream just couldn't compare.
Still babbling about how luck probably comes in pieces and how his octopus was that one extra piece of luck that had caused the Red Wings to win, Caleb followed his dad into the small store that stayed open late and which carried a little bit of just about everything anyone could need in a pinch.
Like always, a loud jangling of bells accompanied the door opening, overlaid with a loud voice saying don't care, old man just put the fucking money in and then there was a loud pop, like a firecracker, followed by a short scream, and even Caleb startled out of his ongoing monologue to look around.
He saw a man in a heavy canvas coat and a knit mask like the one he always wore whenever he was out playing in the snow shove something in his pocket. The man knocked him aside in his haste to get out the door.
Caleb picked himself up off of the floor and stuck his tongue out at the back of the man as he disappeared from sight. Patrick, the old man who owned the store and who always had a spare piece of penny-candy just hours away from 'expiring', was saying something, but Caleb didn't hear. He had just turned back to face his dad.
Bryant's face was whiter than his chest was whenever Caleb saw him going to or from the shower with a towel around his waist, and he had his writing-hand up, pressed awkwardly against his torso. His dad's knees buckled and Caleb didn't hear himself shout, "Dad!"
Facedown on the floor, his legs tangled partially under and partially behind him, Bryant managed to push himself over onto his side. He could clearly hear Patrick yelling for the other customer in the store – Katie Huley from the apartment above the Forresters – to call for an ambulance. An annoying tickle crept up the back of his throat, and he knew that things weren't going to end well. A big part of that knowledge stemmed from the fact that, though he knew that the robber had shot him, he didn't feel anything but that annoying tickle. He locked his eyes with his son.
Not sure how he'd managed to miss it before, he noticed that Caleb's eyes, though the same color as Corrine's from a distance – a sky-blue that nearly faded to white near the pupil – they also showed a little of his own hazel; they had a thin ring of greenish-brown circling the outermost edge of the iris.
He reached out with the hand not reflexively pressed against his chest in the center of an ever-widening red stain – and that, too, was part of knowing things weren't going to end well; the coat was filled with down and shouldn't have been soaked through quite so quickly. Caleb grabbed his hand and tugged on it, demanding that he get up. Bryant could hear the panic in his voice, and took a breath in order to try to alleviate it. But instead of saying anything, the air caught in his throat and made him cough. By normal standards, the force of the cough was barely that of a clearing-of-the-throat harrumph, but it brought the pain.
A light spray of foamy pink landed on Caleb's face and that was when the last of Bryant's fading hope died.
He took in a shallower breath and tried again, but his vision was getting hazy around the edges.
Much later, after the police and the social workers and everything else, the only things Caleb could remember about that day was the fact that luck was made of itty-bitty pieces that added up one way or the other with just one piece being enough to turn the tide, and that his dad's last word had been his name.